I wanted to award a special Harpy Gold Star to Jenna, for her comment in the thread about dying vs. passing away. Jenna wrote: I too am southern and have experienced the oppression of the euphemism all my life. The expressions for death are just the tip of the iceberg.
The oppression of euphemism is absolutely a reality, and not just for Southerners (although I agree that Southerners are frequent offenders). And yes, it goes way beyond “passed away.” Euphemism is defined as “substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.” But that description doesn’t fully describe the way euphemism is used to sanitize or obscure things that are not just offensive, but evil, dangerous, and criminal, often as a deliberate attempt to manipulate the truth.
I was reminded of a Australian rape scandal last year, in which several members of a rugby team were accused of having “non-consensual group sex” with a 19 year old woman. You can read the details in the linked article—they’re potentially triggering—but the thing that incensed me about it was the headline: Group sex has destroyed my life. Yeah, you say “group sex”, I say “gang rape.”
Clearly the paper didn’t want to upset people by accurately describing such an atrocity, but using a euphemism denies both the victim’s suffering and her attackers’ criminality. “Gang rape” may sound ugly, but the ugliness of term pales in comparison to the experience, which caused the victim to attempt suicide and left her with severe PTSD.
Using euphemism to minimize women’s traumatic experiences happens all the time. A friend of mine who was raped hates the term “date rape” being used to describe the attack because, as she points out, “We weren’t on a date.” Obviously, if you’re being raped, it ain’t a date. But “date rape” can imply that the sex might have been consensual and perpetuates a lot of rape apologism. Even all those childish, silly or inaccurate terms for women’s genitals have the effect of infantalizing or denigrating our sexuality.
Euphemism may sometimes be the equivalent of a little white lie (I think “pass away” can fall into this category, for example). More often, though, it’s straight-up whitewashing, and that is nearly always a technique of political or social oppression.
Consider the following euphemisms: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Comfort women. Final Solution. Enhanced interrogation technique. Ethnic cleansing. Capital punishment.
Any other examples you can think of?